fraid to tell mamma."

"Why, mamma, it ain't no one! Can't a fellow just talk? You started it,
didn't you? I was just talking 'cause you was."

"He scares me yet! No consideration that boy has got for his mother!
Abie, a little broth--you ain't got no fever, Abie--your head is cool
like ice."

"You ain't had no supper yet, mamma."

"I had coffee at five o'clock; for myself I never worry. I'm glad enough
you feel all right. It's eight o'clock, Abie--I go me to bed. To-morrow
I go to market with Yetta."

"Aw, mamma, now why for do you--"

"I ain't too proud--such high-toned notions I ain't got. For what I pay
forty-two cents for eggs up here when I can get 'em for thirty-eight?"

"Be careful, mamma; don't fall over the chair--you want a light?"

"No. Write me a note for the milkman, Abie, before you go to bed, and
leave it out with the bottles--half a pint of double cream I want. I
make you cream-potatoes for supper to-morrow. I laid your blue shirt on
your bed, Abie--don't go to bed on it. It's the last time I iron it; but
once more you can wear it, then I make dust-rags. I ironed it soft like
you like."

"Yes, mamma."

"Put the cover on the canary, too, Abie. That night you went to the
lodge he chirped and chirped, just like you was lost and he was crying
'cause me and him was lonely."

"Yes, mamma. Wait till I light the gas in your room for you--you'll
stumble."

"It's too hot for light; I can see by the Magintys' kitchen light across
the air-shaft. What she does in her kitchen so late I don't know--such
housekeeping! Yesterday with my own eyes I seen her shake a table-cloth
out the window with a hole like my hand in it. She should know what I
think of such ways."

Mrs. Ginsburg moved through the gloom, steering carefully round the
phantom furniture. From his place on the couch her son could hear her
moving about her tiny room adjoining the kitchen. A shoe dropped and,
after a satisfying interval, another; the padding of bare feet across a
floor; the tink of a china pitcher against its bowl; the slam of a
drawer; the rusty squeal of spiral bed-springs under pressure.

"Abie, I'm ready."

When Mr. Ginsburg groped into his mother's room she lay in the casual
attitude of sleep, but the yellow patch of light from the shaft fell
across her open eyes and gray wisps of hair that lay on her pillow like
a sickly aura.

"Good night, Abie. You're a good boy, Abie."

"Good night, mamma. A sheet ain't enough-